Ohio State University will increase student scholarship money by $50 million over four years to
help attract the brightest students worldwide and to make sure that prospective enrollees aren’t
deterred by lack of money.

Provost Joseph A. Alutto announced yesterday that the school will increase merit- and need-based
aid as part of a plan to make Ohio State one of the top 10 public research universities in the
country.

“While the quality of our student body has increased considerably and our graduation rates have
improved, we still lag behind our very best peers,” Alutto said after yesterday’s OSU board of
trustees meeting.

To try to surpass those schools, Alutto said, Ohio State has created a 10-year plan to move “
from excellence to eminence.”

In addition to expanding student financial aid, the first phase of the plan calls for these
expenditures:

• $2 million to create a second-year dorm experience for sophomores, and to support other “
living-learning” communities in which students who share common interests or academic programs live
and learn together. The university plans to build more dormitories and require sophomores to live
on campus.

• $10 million to add more tenure-track professors. The goal is to increase the number of faculty
members by 8 to 10 percent — about 300 new positions — over the next 10 years at an estimated cost
of $300 million.

• $10 million for building improvements.

The money would come from state construction funds, an expected $1.5 billion in cost savings
over the next five to 10 years from streamlined services and other cost-shaving measures, and new
revenue such as OSU’s partnership with Huntington National Bank. Huntington recently agreed to pay
Ohio State $25 million to become the school’s official on-campus bank.

To better compete for students, the university created an "eminent scholars" program to provide
50 full-ride scholarships a year. Each scholarship will cover tuition, fees and room and board,
valued at about $28,000.

Students selected as scholars also will be eligible for a one-time payment of $3,000 after their
freshman year so they can do research with faculty members or study abroad, said Dolan Evanovich,
OSU’s vice president for strategic enrollment.

Ohio State also will increase its need-based “Scarlet and Gray” grants from $3,000 to $4,000 and
increase the number of students receiving them by a third — to 7,800 next fall. The additional
funds will allow the university to consider children from families with higher incomes than in the
past. The cut-off was just over $60,500 a year; it will now be just below $68,000.

“It’s such a huge investment, I’m dancing on air,” Evanovich said.

Ohio State distributes about $100 million in student scholarships and grants each year and
recently completed a $116 million fundraising campaign for future student support. Tuition hasn’t
been set for next year, but Evanovich said that campus officials are trying to keep from imposing
the maximum-allowed increase of 3.5 percent.

The meeting marked the end of Leslie H. Wexner’s second term as trustees chairman. The Limited
Brands founder is being succeeded by Robert H. Schottenstein, who is chairman, CEO and president of
M/I Homes Inc. Wexner is to continue on the board through 2020, and Schottenstein’s appointment
runs through 2014.

Trustees were greeted at their meeting at Longaberger Alumni House on Olentangy River Road by
about 200 students and others. They were marching in memory of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was
shot to death by a neighborhood-watch volunteer in a suburb of Orlando, Fla. Some believe that
Martin, a black youth, was shot as a result of racial profiling; the man who shot him has said he
acted in self-defense.

President E. Gordon Gee invited the group into the meeting, where they asked the trustees to
require the university to send out hate-crime alerts and to increase the diversity of its students
and faculty members.